During the event, Frank Kloos wore a mobile phone around his neck that recorded all spoken responses. The contributions were sent to a large screen in the event hall, where the audio was converted in real time into written words and sentences. What started as an experiment by two researchers gradually became a collective artwork: attendees grew aware that their words were visible to everyone present and could themselves add words to the visualisation.

This was not the first time Van Cruchten and Kloos had transformed spoken or written input from an audience into a data visualisation. During the HvA Kennisparade in March 2026, they did something similar in collaboration with Inte Gloerich, with participants expressing their views through stickers and collectively shaping a visualisation. In the new CoECI publication ‘Dream a little’, Van Cruchten and Kloos have written a chapter about this method. They describe an earlier experiment in which participants indicated on a canvas which tasks they would and would not want to hand over to AI. The visualisation on the back cover of the publication is the result of that experiment.

According to the researchers, the primary goal of this approach is not to produce a visualisation, but to start a conversation. The audio-to-image experiment at the book launch was a first for them: Van Cruchten noted that it immediately generated many ideas about how to develop and apply the method further in their research. The CoECI book launch provided a fitting occasion to explore how collective data visualisation can be connecting and imaginative.

Van Cruchten and Kloos are affiliated with the Creative Media for Social Change research group at HvA, where they investigate how people relate to AI. The methods they use form part of the broader ‘Wat als AI…?’ project, which they carry out together with Tamara Witschge as part of the ELSA Lab AI, Media and Democracy.